


slowly, and then all at once

by patriciaselina



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Broken Promises, Declarations Of Love, I'm really sorry, M/M, Terminal Illnesses, you are the piece of me i wish i didn't need
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 15:57:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2115930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Rei-chan," Nagisa calls out to him, eyes crinkled up fondly in a way Rei could recognize anywhere. It's because he's seen that facial tic before, many times over, on his own face. Guess proximity does tend to lead to facial similarities after all. "You came back."</p><p>(Based off this post: http://theory-of-beauty.tumblr.com/post/94104706344 If it weren't obvious enough: this is NOT a happy story.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	slowly, and then all at once

**Author's Note:**

> First and foremost: my most heartfelt apologies. Why did I do this, again??
> 
> Guess which book this was supposed to be based off of. It's not even a secret.

The flowers had to be, without a doubt, the heaviest thing that Rei had ever held in his lifetime.

This is supposed to be a lie, because Rei's once helped Makoto carry boxes and boxes of stuff during their short-lived stint as part-time movers - they had been saving up for Nagisa's birthday present, he remembers. He had considered the smile on Nagisa's face when they had named the baby penguin after him to be the most beautiful thing he had ever seen - of course, that was because he hadn't seen the teary-eyed smile Nagisa would give him when he confessed, back then.

Good times.

He really needs to remember the good times right now.

"Rei-chan," Nagisa calls out to him, eyes crinkled up fondly in a way Rei could recognize anywhere. It's because he's seen that facial tic before, many times over, on his own face. Guess proximity does tend to lead to facial similarities after all. "You came back."

"Of course I'd come back, Nagisa-kun," Rei says, setting the flowers down at the bedside table, smiling, as if everything was alright, as if his world was not going to crash and burn into flaming ashes in a matter of hours.  _Cherish your time with him, Ryugazaki-kun. He needs to be with the usual you right now._ "We promised, remember?"

The smile that Nagisa shoots him in response isn't with his usual 150% cheerfulness, but - he's clearly trying, that's for sure, and Rei doesn't know if that makes things better or worse. "Yeah, we did."

_Nagisa-kun, I love you, and no matter what happens you'll never be alone again._

_Rei-chan, I love you, and no matter what happens I'll always be there for you._

Simple words for simple wishes for a simple life. Too bad they no longer could apply to them, not when things aren't so simple as they should be anymore.

Sometimes, Rei wishes he had told him back then, when he first felt this, back when their world was a sunshine-lit sky and a flower-lined path, when he had looked at him,  _really_  looked at him, and told him he was beautiful. But what does it really matter if he had told him two years earlier, two months earlier, two weeks earlier?

It doesn't matter. They still won't get to have forever.

"I'm sorry for breaking our promise, Rei-chan," Nagisa smiles weakly, chuckling softly, closing his eyes as he does so, and how dare he, how dare he laugh as if they could both shrug this off like a joke? As if the promise Nagisa broke was one of the many they shared over not eating too much ice cream, over not swiping Haru's canned mackerel? "Please don't get mad at me."

"I-I would never get mad at you, Nagisa-kun, don't be preposterous." Rei says, cupping a hand to his mouth to stifle the most ungraceful sob from coming forth because he must not cry, he absolutely should not cry. Because the  _usual_  Rei Ryugazaki would not cry over something as silly as broken promises.

The thing is, though, the usual Rei Ryugazaki would die too, and from the looks of it - from the looks of the rapidly declining heartbeat on the monitor - he'd be dying very soon.

"Never? Then how would you explain the time when you chased after Rin-chan in Samezuka -"

"Well, I wasn't mad at  _you_ , not exactly. Mad at Rin-san, probably. But regarding you...? Mostly I was feeling jealous. I think."

On a usual day he'd deny this until kingdom come, but at this point -

"I think, back then, I was sad, because you'd talk about him so fondly, with such a soft expression on your face, and I had found myself wishing you would do the same for me."

\- lying would do him no favors at all.

"Aw, Rei-chan," He knows that if not for all these wires and tubes and whatnot he'd find himself with arms and a lap full of overexuberant Nagisa Hazuki. As if he needed another reason to just bury his head in his hands and sob over the unfairness of the world. "But now - what do you think about now?"

"Now? I, I guess -"  _despite everything_ , "- I guess I'm happy. Because as things turned out, my wish had always been true."  _Why did I only see this now?_

"Yeah...well, I used to think the same way, too, regarding you and Haru-chan. You talked about his beautiful swimming so much, and I knew it was really silly but I can't help but feel so sad about it." He snorts, shakes his head gingerly. "Haru-chan said we were both so obvious, and that we were so hopeless for not figuring it out earlier. It's unfair, you know, we can't  _all_ be mind readers like Mako-chan! He also said-"

Nagisa stops, which startles Rei completely, because Nagisa is not the kind of person who just  _stops_  in the middle of a sentence - it's either he follows through with the entire thought, or moves on to the other one. Not this, grasping at straws and trying earnestly to forget what he just almost said. Never this.

"What did he say?" Rei asks, worriedly. "Nagisa-kun?"

"He-he said," Nagisa says in such a small, meek voice, the likes of which Rei hasn't heard before and doesn't want to hear again. Nagisa should never feel that small, that boxed in. But here he is. "He said, that when you looked at me, it was as if you were looking at the most beautiful thing in the world."

Usually, in these kinds of situations, one wouldn't want to hold the other person's hand, not when they're this thin and emaciated and obviously  _dying_. But Rei takes Nagisa's hand anyway, softly, fondly, like he's always wanted to do, ever since that first hug after his last track practice. "Haruka- _senpai_  had been telling you the truth, Nagisa-kun."

"Well...I'm sorry, then. Rei-chan."

"What for?"

Nagisa smiles, clutches onto Rei's hand weakly, and says,

"Looks like I'm not so beautiful anymore, ne, Rei-chan?"

And that's when Rei just.

Just.

"Stop _crying_ , Rei-chan," Nagisa says, tone light and airy as his hand weakly cards through Rei's hair. "Haru-chan just might swim in a pool of your tears, and then where would we be then?"

The attempt to lighten his mood should work on Rei, it _really_ should, especially when the smile on Nagisa's face, albeit weak, still manages to warm up the empty spaces in his soul, but it doesn't, not when Nagisa's spouting off nonsense. _Lying does you no favors, Rei Ryugazaki._ "Don't say that, Nagisa-kun. Please don't say that. It's not true."

"Rei-chan...?"

"You'll - you'll always be beautiful to me, Nagisa-kun. Please never forget that. _Promise me_."

When Rei looks up at him, Nagisa's eyes are brimming with tears to match his own, and as Rei looks at him, commits his sunken, sickly,  _brightly smiling_ face to memory - the other man nods.

"Yeah, I will." Nagisa says. "That's a promise I can at least _not_ break, ne?"

"Yes. Yes, I guess it is."

.

.

.

.

Two weeks later. The same flowers, the same reason, the same man. Well. Almost the same man.

The usual Rei Ryugazaki _died,_ two weeks ago. And alongside him -

"Nagisa-kun," Rei says, looking down and smiling. "I came back."

Nobody answers him in reply. Then he remembers Nagisa, remembers him saying:

_I'm sorry for breaking our promise, Rei-chan._

And just like that, just like that, he falls apart again.

**Author's Note:**

> I know, I know, I'm sorry. Have some [non-angsty](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1172222) [Reigisa](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1293586) [fics](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1812010) [I wrote](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1734698) before to make up for it. Now if you would excuse me, I shall go cry a river now.


End file.
